


That old time feeling

by myhappyface



Category: Homicide: Life on the Street
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-21
Updated: 2011-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhappyface/pseuds/myhappyface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Groundhog's Day comes for Meldrick Lewis.  Or something like that.  Set after the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That old time feeling

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks for the beta to carlyinrome, who endures my affection for cops and robbers with an extraordinary amount of patience. Title from [here](http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/w/willienelson7671/icanthelpitifimstillinlovewithyou1010362.html).

The dead guy's wallet is empty of everything but a state ID card, which Sheppard is waving at Lewis. Lewis squints to make out the details. When he looks up, he sees Kellerman standing at the mouth of the alleyway, behind the crime scene tape.

"Well, now, look what the cat done drug in," Lewis says. "You here for this schmo, Mikey?"

Kellerman smiles the only smile Lewis has seen since he shot Mahoney and hefts an envelope, cigarette in the same hand. "Neighbor, actually. Finishing up a case."

"Hey, what happened to all that, all that alleged clean livin' you been doin'? Those things are known to kill," Lewis says, making a quick pantomime that encompasses both the smoking and the scowling.

"So are lots of things. You behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, for instance."

"That is untrue and unprovoked, and I will have you know that during the _last_ accident on company time involving a fatality I wasn't even dri--"

Sheppard coughs, jingles the keys to their Cavalier. "Unprovoked or not, man's got a point."

Kellerman shakes his head and turns to cross the street, calls out _good hunting_ over his shoulder before disappearing into one of the houses. Lewis watches him go, and when he looks over at Sheppard, she's frowning.

"Am I ever gonna get the full story about that guy?"

"Not from me you ain't."

Sheppard lets out a sharp, annoyed breath, but they're doing better; she doesn't give him the trust speech, just turns her attention to the small huddle of bystanders.

"What do you think the probability is of one of these fine people stepping forward with something helpful?"

"I'd say a good one, two percent," Lewis says, rolling with it. "I think today is gonna be our day."

The morning seems to get a little warmer.

 

Lewis reads through the _Sun_ at his desk, feet kicked up on the corner, waiting for the autopsy to come back. No surprises, he knows.

Richards, the dead guy, didn't have much going for him - mortgage, bills, ex-wife - but he didn't have much against him, either. Worked the same job for thirty years; never early, never late. A middle-of-the-road kind of homicide for a middle-of-the-road kind of life, something that looks more like a random mugging than anything else, on top of a string of _don't see nothing, don't know nothing_ drug murders. Lewis' square of the Board is hemorrhaging.

Someone knocks his feet to the ground and Lewis says, "Goddamnit, Steve," but it's no good news, just Gaffney. There to lead his weekly class on the general orders for black officers, no doubt. Lewis stands, salutes, and falls into parade rest until Gaffney moves on to see Gharty, drops back into his seat when Gaffney clears the room.

"Nice hustle, Lewis," Hall says.

Lewis picks up the football instead of the paper and throws the ball back and forth to himself for a few minutes. Thinks idly about throwing it to Hall just to hear the kid yelp, but puts it down, shakes out his paper, goes back to waiting.

Sheppard gets back with her lunch a few minutes later, and Lewis almost loses a hand trying to poach one of her fries.

 

Closing time. Lewis gets rid of the comatose guy on the last stool and locks up, straightens the chairs, wipes down the bar. He pours himself a beer and raps his knuckles against Gee's campaign poster same way he does every night, lets the big guy know nobody's forgotten him and nobody will, no matter how long Gharty sits in his office.

He drops down at a table with his beer and lets the dark settle on top of him. Supposed to take up the chairs and sweep, but he'll do it tomorrow before they open. Long day, the way yesterday was and tomorrow will be again.

The day only strayed from the path when Kellerman turned up at Richards' house like a bad penny, smiling his knife's smile and offering them pictures of some kid in high-tops taking in the air around their crime scene. It's what solves the case: faced with the pictures and a couple annoyed homicide detectives, one upstanding citizen from the neighborhood puts in a kid named Douglas for the deed. Douglas, in his mother's house when Lewis and Sheppard track him down, looks very young and very scared, but they lock him up just the same.

Long day. Long year, but that's the job, and the job's always the same, for better or worse, and in the end there's nothing else.

There used to be more, he thinks. For a while there he had a wife, and business partners who weren't incarcerated or in New York, which kind of amounts to the same thing, and regular partners who hadn't lost their hope or their cool or their gun. Long couple of years, now that he's thinking on it.

Maybe that's why he sent Ballard and Giardello home hours ago, why he's sitting in the empty bar now, a tired, lonely man like Barbara always predicted, using the job to excuse not doing anything about being tired and lonely.

Lewis checks the time, figures he might as well sweep now and save himself an argument with Giardello tomorrow morning. He takes his glass over to the bar to rinse out, and the cold water wakes him up some, maybe just enough. He suddenly realizes he has someplace to go.

Anyway, there's no reason Barbara has to be right about everything.

 

It's nearly three when Lewis gets to the marina, but Kellerman is sitting out on the deck, paper in front of him. It's nearly three, but Kellerman is watching him walk down the dock, waiting for him to speak.

Lewis clears his throat and asks, "Hey, uh, permission to come aboard?" and tries not to think of the other times he's said that, tries not to think too hard about what he's doing. He steps up onto the deck in the absence of a reply and looks for a place he can sit without facing the water, winds up leaning on the rail next to Kellerman. "Ain't fit for man nor P.I. out here, Mikey, what are you doing?"

Kellerman gestures with the cigarette in his hand and turns back to his paper. "Last time my parents were here, they complained about the smell."

"You gotta give those things up, man," Lewis says. He watches the smoke curl around Kellerman's hand, watches the smoke disappear into the air. Kellerman's hair is getting long again, he notices absently.

"What do you care if I smoke or not, Lewis?" Kellerman asks, not looking like he cares one way or the other, either, so Lewis clears his throat again and looks away, looks for some fresh air.

"Made an arrest today, picked up the kid who shot my guy. It was those pictures you gave us, Mr. J.H. Kellerman, so I wanted to say thanks, thank you. My clearance rate needs all the help it can get this year, you know?"

"I remember," Kellerman says. "At least summer's passed, though. Summer was always the worst."

"Yeah, we're takin' a beatin' this year, no doubt about it. I think things are looking up, maybe -- "

Kellerman interrupts, folds up his paper and asks, "What do you want, Lewis? Why are you here?"

Lewis sighs and rubs at his face. The scar at his hairline from the crash itches, and it's cold enough Lewis can see his breath. "How come you don't call me Meldrick no more?"

"I guess during that year of the silent treatment I got the impression you didn't want me to," Kellerman says, looking surprised, then looking surprised at his surprise.

The last time Lewis was here, it was the day Kellerman shot Mahoney. They both got wasted, because it was that kind of day, a dead drunk at dinnertime kind of day, and all Lewis remembers after they finished the Jim Beam is Kellerman prodding at Lewis' busted knuckles, watching him, testing the sting.

He should have listened to his instincts. He's too tired for this.

"All right, man, all right, thank you, good night," Lewis says, pushes himself off the railing. He makes to pat Kellerman's cheek before he goes and Kellerman grabs his wrist, hard, fingers wrapping around his pulse point. Kellerman's eyes on him are steady.

"Why don't you stay," Kellerman says. "Bar's inside."

 

Kellerman throws back a second shot and says, "One of the many excellent things about being my own boss is that when I come into work with a hangover, no one gives a damn."

"Still drinking, huh," Lewis says, mostly to himself, mostly into his glass.

Kellerman braces up, defensive, and says, "I'm a grown man, Lewis. I'll drink if I want."

"You sure will," Lewis says, finishes his drink. He looks at Kellerman and Kellerman looks back for a minute, then looks away.

"That's not what I meant," he says, quieter than Lewis expects. "It isn't like that anymore."

"Good to hear. I'm sure all those cheating husbands and wives out there in greater Baltimore wish it was, though."

Kellerman snorts, and the fight they were working up to dissolves in the quiet air inside the boat. "That case I was working today, the one that put yours in the black, that was a weird one. The woman who hired me lives three houses down from the mistress, and I've followed this guy once before, caught him doing the same thing. She could have divorced him a couple times by now at least."

Lewis laughs too, because what the fuck, and says, "Come on, now, Mikey, love's a many splendored thing. And maybe she didn't get a pre-nup or something."

"Nah, that's not it," Kellerman says, and he leans in over the table, the way he used to do to let Lewis know he was serious, when he had something to say nobody else needed to hear. "I'll bet you a twenty I get a call from her before the end of the year, wanting me to follow her old man around again, and it won't be because she doesn't have a pre-nup, or because she doesn't want to tell her neighbors he's doggin' around, but because sometimes it is just too damn hard to change, and that's the truth."

Lewis stops playing with his glass and looks up, and Kellerman is watching him again, maybe still testing the sting, and Lewis can feel his own breath start to come faster. Kellerman stands up.

 

Lewis' head knocks against the wall, jolts what breath's left in him out, and he looks down, rubs his thumb across Kellerman's shuttered eyes, his lips. Kellerman moans and digs his fingers into the backs of Lewis' knees, getting as close as he can. He's probably never done this before, and the thought makes Lewis pull him off, pull him up, and Kellerman climbs him like a tree, kisses his neck, his mouth, panting. Lewis abides it for a moment before he pushes Kellerman over onto his back, crawls between Kellerman's splayed legs and presses him down. They're half on, half off the couch, and Kellerman's eyes are on him like he can't see anything else. He's saying _Meldrick, Meldrick_ over and over.

That and the bare lines of Kellerman's neck make Lewis feel unhappy and vulnerable, and he lays his own hand there so he won't have to look, tilts Kellerman's head back, kisses him to quiet him. He can taste himself in Kellerman's mouth, chases it down, shudders hard, mutters _Christ, Mike, Jesus Christ_. Kellerman grabs at his hips and jerks him down and he is done, _done_ , and when his blood calms, he hears Kellerman --

"--touch me, Meldrick, please, come on--"

\-- so he reaches down and wraps his hand around Kellerman, listens to all the breath go out of him at once, feels Kellerman's calf around the back of his thigh. Kellerman's eyes are open wide, still, and Lewis leans in and bites his lip, and Kellerman comes, holding Lewis against him, so close they're breathing the same air.

 

When he comes out of the bathroom, Kellerman is sitting on the bed, sheets pushed back. Must have been waiting for him: it's a small room, but there are other places to look, and Kellerman is staring. Lewis meets his eyes and doesn't look away. He takes off his sweaty, sticky clothes, gets down to his shorts and undershirt, and sits down on the bed next to Kellerman. The sheets feel cool on his skin, and he shoves his feet under the blanket.

"Staying?"

Lewis raises his eyebrows, like, _What?_ and Kellerman laughs. It's the first time Lewis has heard him laugh like a real person in years, and it tugs something loose inside him.

"So why'd you help us out with this thing anyway?" he asks as he pulls the sheets up around his hips. "Nothing in it for you as far as I can tell." When he looks over at Kellerman, Kellerman's got his hands spread out in front of him, and there's a bruise on his jaw the exact size of Lewis' thumb.

"One of those things that's too hard to change, maybe," he says.

Lewis closes his eyes for a minute and when he opens them again Kellerman's cutting out the light, lying down stiffly on his back.

"What, you a cuddler or something, Mikey?"

"God, _shut up_ ," Kellerman says, tucking the covers over himself, and Lewis laughs, reaches to wrap his arm around Kellerman's waist, pulls him over. Lewis falls asleep with his hand pressed against Kellerman's belly, listening to him breathe, and wakes up to the smell of breakfast.


End file.
